Fortifying wines - adding alcohol, usually grape spirit, to them - is another way of making them sweet. The alcohol incapacitates the yeasts, leaving unfermented sugar.
Occasionally, the alcohol is added before the grape juice even starts to ferment, the best-known example being the Cognac region's Pineau de Charentes. Usually, it's added part way through fermentation. France's vins doux naturels, such as Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, Rivesaltes, and Banyuls, are made in this way, as are port, Madeira, Marsala, and Mala Sherry and Montilla differ in that fortification takes place after fermentation, which means that they begin as dry wines, although they may be sweetened afterward.
Sherry
Fortification is only one aspect of the great fortified wines. The other essential and distinguishing element is maturation. Sherry is aged through a "solera" system of fractional, or serial, blending: as it ages, each row of barrels has sherry from the next, younger, row blended into it. This constantly "refreshes" the maturing sherry. As a very rough average, on each occasion a quarter to a third of each barrel is moved to the next stage. Some solera systems date back more than a century.
The other distinctive feature of sherry is flor, a yeast that grows : layer on the surface of the young wine. If the growth is vigorous (looking rather like porridge), the wine will be classified as a fino (or manzanilla) and only lightly fortified. If there is little or no flor, the wine will be fortified more strongly and will be classified as an oloroso. The other sherry styles, such as amontillado and palo cortado, fall between fino/manzanilla and oloroso.
Medeira
Madeira has an equally distinctive but entirely different aging process. It is either heated in large tanks for about six months (the estufagem process), or it is aged in warehouses at the ambient temperature. This varies from about 66-76¡ã F (18-25¡ã C) through the year and is considerably warmer than is advisable for other wines. The effect, either way, is to give Madeira its characteristic burnt tang and to make the wine incredibly long-lived, if not virtually indestructible.
Port
Port is aged more conventionally, but in two different ways. Tawny or wood ports are aged for many years in barrels and are ready to drink when bottled and sold. Vintage, single-quinta, and vintage-type ports are aged for a much shorter time in barrel and then need to finish their development in bottle. In the case of true vintage port, this may take decades.
söndag 12 december 2010
lördag 11 december 2010
Tips on Buying Wine in Restaurants
Most restaurants have far fewer wines to choose from than any wine store or supermarket, but that doesn't mean it's easier to make a decision, especially if you're choosing for people eating different things. Even if matching the food isn't a problem, it's easy to be discouraged by horrendous prices and unfamiliar and hard-to-pronounce names. In an ideal world, there is a friendly, well-informed wine waiter at the ready - not to mention a varied range of wines with modest markups, interesting house wines, wines by the glass, and half-bottles. But restaurant life isn't always like that, and along with other shortcomings, the lists themselves can be woefully inadequate - chaotically organized and lacking vital information such as vintages or producers' names. If the waiter doesn't know, ask to see the bottle(s) and check such details yourself.
Interpreting prices
Even leaving restaurant prices and individual countries' taxes out of the discussion, do you get what you pay for? There are no hard and fast answers, but, very broadly speaking, at under $10 a bottle in the US you get more or less what you pay for, whereas at over $10 you may also be paying for such things as rarity, fashion status, and the producer's unalloyed ambition. At over $20, you are almost certainly paying for some of these things - nowhere more obviously than in the wave of new, tiny volume, "superpremium" wines emerging all over the world. Sometimes these wines are created jointly by two high-profile producers (often one European and one New World) who save their greatest creativity for the pricing. All these wines prove is that, if you make something in small enough quantities and price it highly enough, some people will form a line to buy it.
Price and quality
Ignoring fashion and egos, elements that make one wine more expensive than another include high land prices (in Burgundy and California's Napa Valley, for example); ground that is expensive to work (such as the steep, rocky slopes of Priorato, in Spain); and low crop levels. The latter may occur because the vines are old (but give beautifully-flavored fruit), the soil is infertile, and the climate cool, or because the grower is pruning deliberately to limit the crop. Another factor that affects price is the grape variety: some, such as viognier and pinot noir, are temperamental; others, such as chardonnay, will do anything for anyone anywhere. And those are only the vineyard variables. Winemakers can increase their costs enormously by buying expensive, high-tech equipment and new French oak barrels annually, by maturing the wine in oak for a long time and aging it further in bottle, and by any number of other time-consuming, skill-demanding techniques. At the other end of the scale, especially in the southern hemisphere, there are areas where sunshine is plentiful, land is cheap to buy an cheap to work, vines are grown in such a way that they produce huge crops and wines are made and sold within a matter of months.
Interpreting prices
Even leaving restaurant prices and individual countries' taxes out of the discussion, do you get what you pay for? There are no hard and fast answers, but, very broadly speaking, at under $10 a bottle in the US you get more or less what you pay for, whereas at over $10 you may also be paying for such things as rarity, fashion status, and the producer's unalloyed ambition. At over $20, you are almost certainly paying for some of these things - nowhere more obviously than in the wave of new, tiny volume, "superpremium" wines emerging all over the world. Sometimes these wines are created jointly by two high-profile producers (often one European and one New World) who save their greatest creativity for the pricing. All these wines prove is that, if you make something in small enough quantities and price it highly enough, some people will form a line to buy it.
Price and quality
Ignoring fashion and egos, elements that make one wine more expensive than another include high land prices (in Burgundy and California's Napa Valley, for example); ground that is expensive to work (such as the steep, rocky slopes of Priorato, in Spain); and low crop levels. The latter may occur because the vines are old (but give beautifully-flavored fruit), the soil is infertile, and the climate cool, or because the grower is pruning deliberately to limit the crop. Another factor that affects price is the grape variety: some, such as viognier and pinot noir, are temperamental; others, such as chardonnay, will do anything for anyone anywhere. And those are only the vineyard variables. Winemakers can increase their costs enormously by buying expensive, high-tech equipment and new French oak barrels annually, by maturing the wine in oak for a long time and aging it further in bottle, and by any number of other time-consuming, skill-demanding techniques. At the other end of the scale, especially in the southern hemisphere, there are areas where sunshine is plentiful, land is cheap to buy an cheap to work, vines are grown in such a way that they produce huge crops and wines are made and sold within a matter of months.
Best Climate for Growing Grapes
As far as climate is concerned, the classic European wine regions are mostly near to the margins of successful wine cultivation - where vines are most at risk from the weather.
The growing season in Europe can be a nail-biting experience from start to finish. Too much rain dilutes the flavor of the grapes; too little sunshine results in unripe grapes. Hazards such as spring frost, poor weather when the vines are flowering (preventing the fruit from setting satisfactorily), hail, mildew, and fall rot are always in the cards. Sometimes even drought can be a problem, especially in those regions where irrigation is frowned on, and largely banned, because of the potential to use it to increase yields and thus dilute quality.
It's not only Europe that suffers: this vineyard, in Mendoza, Argentina, was stripped of its foliage by midsummer hail.
Mesoclimates
The Old World grower tends to look for sites where the severity of the climate is moderated in some way -for example, near a body of water that warms the adjoining land, on a slope sheltered from the prevailing wind, or in a frost-free pocket above the valley floor. Sites such as these are described as having a mesoclimate (a climate within a climate). And if previous generations haven't disclosed which vineyard or slope is the most favored, and which the least reliable, experience will soon reveal all, as it does for any other kind of farmer. Yet, however well a site is selected, and however carefully the vines are tended through the seasons, there will always be difficult years in these marginal regions, resulting in disappointing wines.
Climatic extremes
Warm regions are not without their threats. Argentina suffered badly from El Nino in 1998; the Hunter Valley in Australia is prone to harvesttime rain; Western Australia and New Zealand sometimes suffer the effects of passing cyclones; and a variety of abnormal weather conditions made 2000 an unusually difficult vintage for some of South Australia's key regions. But these are the exception, not the rule. Whereas the Old World hopes for good weather, the New World expects it. The latter's problem is more likely to be too much warmth too soon, resulting in grapes that are ripe before they have developed much flavor.
So, the Old World grower looks for an extra degree of sunshine or frost protection, while the quality-oriented grower in the southern hemisphere and California increasingly looks for the cooler site up in the hills, the one that catches chilling sea breezes or morning fogs, or the one where the temperature drops lower at night. The result of all this is that the world's finest wines tend to come from the warmer years in favored northern Europe vineyards and, increasingly, from those vineyards in the New World that are cooler and more European than the average.
The growing season in Europe can be a nail-biting experience from start to finish. Too much rain dilutes the flavor of the grapes; too little sunshine results in unripe grapes. Hazards such as spring frost, poor weather when the vines are flowering (preventing the fruit from setting satisfactorily), hail, mildew, and fall rot are always in the cards. Sometimes even drought can be a problem, especially in those regions where irrigation is frowned on, and largely banned, because of the potential to use it to increase yields and thus dilute quality.
It's not only Europe that suffers: this vineyard, in Mendoza, Argentina, was stripped of its foliage by midsummer hail.
Mesoclimates
The Old World grower tends to look for sites where the severity of the climate is moderated in some way -for example, near a body of water that warms the adjoining land, on a slope sheltered from the prevailing wind, or in a frost-free pocket above the valley floor. Sites such as these are described as having a mesoclimate (a climate within a climate). And if previous generations haven't disclosed which vineyard or slope is the most favored, and which the least reliable, experience will soon reveal all, as it does for any other kind of farmer. Yet, however well a site is selected, and however carefully the vines are tended through the seasons, there will always be difficult years in these marginal regions, resulting in disappointing wines.
Climatic extremes
Warm regions are not without their threats. Argentina suffered badly from El Nino in 1998; the Hunter Valley in Australia is prone to harvesttime rain; Western Australia and New Zealand sometimes suffer the effects of passing cyclones; and a variety of abnormal weather conditions made 2000 an unusually difficult vintage for some of South Australia's key regions. But these are the exception, not the rule. Whereas the Old World hopes for good weather, the New World expects it. The latter's problem is more likely to be too much warmth too soon, resulting in grapes that are ripe before they have developed much flavor.
So, the Old World grower looks for an extra degree of sunshine or frost protection, while the quality-oriented grower in the southern hemisphere and California increasingly looks for the cooler site up in the hills, the one that catches chilling sea breezes or morning fogs, or the one where the temperature drops lower at night. The result of all this is that the world's finest wines tend to come from the warmer years in favored northern Europe vineyards and, increasingly, from those vineyards in the New World that are cooler and more European than the average.
4 Common Grapes for Red Wines
Gamay
The grape famous for one wine: Beaujolais. No other region makes gamay with the same fresh intensity and the lively, sappy, strawberry fruit achieved in the granitic hills of Beaujolais. Just to the north of Beaujolais, in the Maconnais, gamay is the grape behind most (rather dull) red Macon and some basic Bourgogne Rouge. It also appears in Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains, a blend with pinot noir that finds its echo in Switzerland's Dole. In and around the Loire Valley, it produces such wines as Gamay de Touraine, Coteaux du Giennois, Cotes du Forez, and Cote Roannaise. Wines labeled gamay in eastern Europe and California are usually, respectively, blaufrankisch and pinot noir.
Grenache
Until a few years ago, the world's most widely planted red grape, grenache, was not a name seen much on labels. If people had heard of it, it was usually as the most important of the 13 grape varieties that are permitted, but rarely all used, in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Grenache found favor in the late 1990s, when full-bodied red wines with spicy, ripe fruit became fashionable. Not that all grenache - or garnacha in Spain, where it is even more important than in the south of France - has this character, or the signature raspberry and white pepper flavors. Young grenache vines, and vines allowed to overproduce, give high-alcohol but pallid wines. Both Australia and California grow it on a large scale for cheap, high-volume wines; but, in Australia especially, old grenache vines are now being diverted to the production of big, fruity, characterful reds. Grenache is also a good variety for rose, or rosado.
Malbec
Like syrah/shiraz and grenache, malbec is a grape variety on a roll. At least, it is in its adopted country of Argentina. In Argentina, and on a much smaller scale also in Chile, malbec produces full, richly fruity, spicy reds with flavors of mulberries and blackberries. In its native Cahors in southwest France, it is better known for harder, leaner wines with dry tannins, higher acid, a mineral, pencil-shavings character, and restrained blackberry fruit. Small amounts of malbec are still used in Bordeaux and other reds from the French southwest, and a few Californian winemakers incorporate it in their Meritage wines (Bordeaux blends). Just recently, a handful of producers in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, have started to use malbec with more conviction in their - mostly merlot - blends, and with success.
Mourvedre
Called monastrell in Spain, the robust, dark-berried mourvedre has always been one of the key Spanish varieties; but it was little talked about under its French name in France or anywhere else until recently. Mourvedre was known, if at all, as the principal grape of the long-lived, but rather obscure, Provencal red wine Bandol, and as a bit-part player in a few other southern French reds. Its fortunes changed when it was recommended as one of several "improving varieties" throughout Languedoc-Roussillon, recognized for its firm-structured wines with their concentrated, gamey, leathery, black-fruit flavors. As mataro, it languished on the sidelines in California and Australia for many years; but, since Rhone grapes and other southern French varieties have become the vogue, mataro has been rehabilitated as sought-after mourvedre.
The grape famous for one wine: Beaujolais. No other region makes gamay with the same fresh intensity and the lively, sappy, strawberry fruit achieved in the granitic hills of Beaujolais. Just to the north of Beaujolais, in the Maconnais, gamay is the grape behind most (rather dull) red Macon and some basic Bourgogne Rouge. It also appears in Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains, a blend with pinot noir that finds its echo in Switzerland's Dole. In and around the Loire Valley, it produces such wines as Gamay de Touraine, Coteaux du Giennois, Cotes du Forez, and Cote Roannaise. Wines labeled gamay in eastern Europe and California are usually, respectively, blaufrankisch and pinot noir.
Grenache
Until a few years ago, the world's most widely planted red grape, grenache, was not a name seen much on labels. If people had heard of it, it was usually as the most important of the 13 grape varieties that are permitted, but rarely all used, in Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Grenache found favor in the late 1990s, when full-bodied red wines with spicy, ripe fruit became fashionable. Not that all grenache - or garnacha in Spain, where it is even more important than in the south of France - has this character, or the signature raspberry and white pepper flavors. Young grenache vines, and vines allowed to overproduce, give high-alcohol but pallid wines. Both Australia and California grow it on a large scale for cheap, high-volume wines; but, in Australia especially, old grenache vines are now being diverted to the production of big, fruity, characterful reds. Grenache is also a good variety for rose, or rosado.
Malbec
Like syrah/shiraz and grenache, malbec is a grape variety on a roll. At least, it is in its adopted country of Argentina. In Argentina, and on a much smaller scale also in Chile, malbec produces full, richly fruity, spicy reds with flavors of mulberries and blackberries. In its native Cahors in southwest France, it is better known for harder, leaner wines with dry tannins, higher acid, a mineral, pencil-shavings character, and restrained blackberry fruit. Small amounts of malbec are still used in Bordeaux and other reds from the French southwest, and a few Californian winemakers incorporate it in their Meritage wines (Bordeaux blends). Just recently, a handful of producers in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, have started to use malbec with more conviction in their - mostly merlot - blends, and with success.
Mourvedre
Called monastrell in Spain, the robust, dark-berried mourvedre has always been one of the key Spanish varieties; but it was little talked about under its French name in France or anywhere else until recently. Mourvedre was known, if at all, as the principal grape of the long-lived, but rather obscure, Provencal red wine Bandol, and as a bit-part player in a few other southern French reds. Its fortunes changed when it was recommended as one of several "improving varieties" throughout Languedoc-Roussillon, recognized for its firm-structured wines with their concentrated, gamey, leathery, black-fruit flavors. As mataro, it languished on the sidelines in California and Australia for many years; but, since Rhone grapes and other southern French varieties have become the vogue, mataro has been rehabilitated as sought-after mourvedre.
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